Three In One

Natasha Kalashnikova visited my home town of Norwich, Norfolk recently. 
 To make things easier she borrowed my guest room, and we shot some cool stuff on the last afternoon. 
 Having just set up my home studio I was keen to try it out. But she really liked my location work. 
With a bit of planning we managed to cram a lot into an afternoon. 
Dark Virtue Designs kindly supplied us with the latex bikini set at short notice. 
 We finished up jumping in the car and heading out to shoot in a derelict building hidden in some Norfolk woodland known as "The Witch's House"

Dark Future

This was the last stop on our euro tour, and we were looking forward to a lie-in before catching the ferry.  Having got up early and shot two or three locations a day and clocked up some serious miles.  This and Chateau Noisy had both been on  my bucket list for a while, and I  was really happy to find the "Rino" almost straight away.
 Roswell's outfit is a one-off from German designer Cybersque. I had been a fan of her work for a while and I picked this location especially to go with her designs.

This set was published in Avant Fashion Magazine. 

Dead Sperm Whale

Recently 23 whales have been stranded across beaches of northern Europe and may have come from a single whale pod.  Normally Sperm whales do not enter the north sea as they hut deep sea squid.  It was a rare and very sad to have the opportunity to photograph the one washed up at Hunstantaon. 
 However according to marine biologists, there may be an upside.
 “For individual animals, this is certainly a bad thing, but when we get more strandings, that tends to correlate with population recovery.” Paul Jepson of the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Program at the Zoological Society of London. 
 There was a lot of media talk of trophy hunters and people being disrespectful, When we visited there was steady stream of people coming and going and everyone was curious and respectful.
 However due to an earlier incident the lower jaw had been removed by vets to prevent anyone attempting to remove the teeth.  
 As we were about ten minuets into our walk back to the car we heard the most almighty bang.  Followed by a rancid stench of rotting flesh with a sickly sweet after taste. 
 We looked back and could see people torches still moving so we know they were ok, but probably in need of some new cloths and a long bath. 
 For more information on whale and marine conservation and the fight against illegal fishing and whaling check out the work of Sea Shepherd. 

Other World

Jade Stacy Maria and Roswell Ivory modeling latex by Dead lotus Couture, in an abandoned office block with a double helix stairwell. 
 The photos that James Kerwin  and I took here were published in Kultur Magizine.

I really wanted to get this last shot wearing one of the outfits, but the floor was so wet and grimy it would have ruined the latex.

Cooling Tower Return With Roswell Ivory.

 I Came here  in Sep 2013, on my first Euro photography road trip.
I knew it would be an interesting place for a fashion shoot with unusual big soft overhead light and geometric shapes.
 As we relied we were close by on our way to somewhere else so Roswell and I made a quick detour to shoot a location art nude set. Which was latter published in NIF  magazine.  
 Blog about the location and first visit. 
 

Castle Miranda / Château de Noisy

 This location had been on my bucket list for a couple of years. 
I came to with Roswell Ivory  to shoot for Orchid Corsetry. 
More about that here. 
 We were warned off on our first attempt, but we succeeded the next day. Although no one was happy about meeting in the hotel lobby at 5am it was defiantly worth it. 

 A fairy tale castle, Castle Miranda, aka Château de Noisy stands abandoned and crumbling on large hill in near the Belgium / France border. Built between 1855 and 1866 by English architect Edward Milner, under the instructions of the Liedekerke-Beaufort family The castle began life as a summer home but was then claimed by German troop during WW2, at the battle of the Bulge. After the war the Belgian National Railway Company used the building as a school and holiday home for the children of the Belgian railway employees, until the late 1970′s. closing its doors in 1991 reportedly due to the heavy financial burden of the upkeep and maintenance.  The Count and owner of the property then decided to dismantle a lot of the remaining fixtures, living it to decay and vandalism.


 


Corsets and Castles

 This location had been on my bucket list for a couple of years. 
We were warned off on our first attempt, but we succeeded the next day. Although no one was happy about meeting in the hotel lobby at 5am it was defiantly wort it. Thanks to James Kerwin for sharing the driving , Roswell Ivory and Jade Stacy Maria  for being ready at 5am so we cold shoot in good light without getting busted. And Orchid Corsetry for providing Roswell's outfit.
I will post a set about the location soon. 
 

A little teaser for my post about the location.



Danielle May Sheehan. Part 1

I rarely do studio work, preferring location and events. 
 But in December it's cold and miserable outside, so I took the opportunity to to do something different and spent an afternoon in Coco studio.  It as a refreshing change to be shooting somewhere warm with no risk of being disturbed.
 I came away with a few ideas for a home studio, but more about that another time.
Danielle was a real pleasure to shoot, hopeful we will do something on location in the summer.

Death of British Industry

We went for a wander round a mothballed U.K steel plant. Due to cheep imports from over seas it is obvious it will never run again.  The site has changed hands many times , but went into administration on 25 January 2012 with the loss of 350 jobs.
 
The first photo in this post is a five shot vertical panorama,  five shots stitched together. the final coped image being 1.9gb with over fifty million pixels.
  

Chernobyl & Pripyat.

If you want to visit derelict places Chernobyl & Pripyat as to be one of the all time top locations. I visited in Apr 2015. I was intending to put it off until after buying a new camera. But with the war in eaten Ukraine hotting up, I decided I should go wile I still could. 
      50,000 people were evacuated, when reactor number four went into melt down then blew up.  To speed up the evacuation, the residents were told to bring only what was necessary since the authorities said it would only be a temporary evacuation lasting approximately three days. As a result, most of the residents left most of their personal belongings which can still be found at Pripyat. An exclusion zone of 30 km (19 mi) remains in place today.

We met this couple who refused to leave, they still live within the exclusion zone.

The crew, from right to left. Myself, James Kerwin, Ritchie Gowin, Gigi Soden, 
Rebecca Bathory, Jess Norgrove,  Adam x should have been in this as well, but he was lagging behind as normal.

Lulu Lockhart, Table Light.

I prefer location work over shooting in a studio, but living in the United Kingdom the weather is pretty unreliable. So I have been trying to improve my studio skills. I was only indenting to experiment with lighting when I shot these. But thanks to the very talented Lulu Lockhart, I ended up with theses, which were later published in NIF magazine. 

Hellfire Nun

When I shot this it was the most technically complex shoot I had attempted to date.
I used five different light souses one huge reflector, and approximately twelve smoke canisters. After a lot of prep work all theses shots were taken in a two minute  window, that's how long we had good amounts of smoke for.  We had a little time left after the latex shoot, so we shot a quick second style as well.
  This was a personal protect, with a fantastic team of people supporting me.  Model, Elyssia. Make up, Iberian Black Arts. Latex, Dark Virtue Designs.

Derelict Cooling Tower I.M

 I took these in Sep 2013 on my first Euro photography road trip.
The Belgians seem to  prefer a single  huge cooling tower at each plant. Unlike the UK, where we several smaller towers, Inside there seemed to be good photos to be had no matter where I pointed my camera. I wanted to take some better photos of the underside as well but the water lever at the base of the tower was rising, I was lucky to get out with a dry camera and wet trousers.
 IM’s hyperboloid cooling tower sits on a river bank, with the power station  on the opposite side. I wanted to visit the power plant, but there were workmen who would have spotted us. The water troughs were still there, where the hot water would have flowed after being pumped out of the large hole in the center. It would have then flowed through the small gaps and fallen into the lake below. The water cools while falling, the heat creating a natural updraught through the tower, further aiding cooling and carrying the dispersed heat out of the top.
I intend to return to use this location for a fashion editorial one day.

kinky Boots

The lovely Anita De Bauch came to stay for a few days, and do a quick shoot with me.
It was too cold to do anything on location, so I shot this set of her wearing boots by Fabulously Fetish in my front room. This set was featured in NIF magazine.